Did you hear the good news? President Trump has taken the handcuffs, blindfolds and leg irons off the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) and is actually allowing its agents to do the job for which they were hired.

On Wednesday, Jan. 10, it was reported that, “agents arrested 21 people suspected of living in the country illegally in a predawn sweep targeting dozens of 7-Eleven stores across the country.” The number was actually 98 stores, but who’s counting. read more

U.S. authorities deported fewer immigrants in fiscal year 2013 than at any time since President Obama took office, according to secret numbers obtained by the Center for Immigration Studies which suggest Mr. Obama’s non-deportation policies have hindered removals of illegal immigrants.

Just 364,700 immigrants were removed in fiscal year 2013, according to internal numbers from U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement that CIS released Wednesday — down 11 percent from the nearly 410,000 who were deported in 2012.

The administration has testified to Congress that it has enough money to deport 400,000 every year, but Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at CIS, said Mr. Obama and the Homeland Security Department have placed so many illegal immigrants off-limits for deportations that they cannot find enough people to fulfill that quota. read more

Late last summer 10 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents filed a federal lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

What did the lawsuit pertain to, you may ask? Might it have been a workplace incident such as sexual harassment? Maybe they filed suit over unsafe working conditions or unfair advancement procedures. No? ICE works with illegal aliens and border security. It must be that they’re being forced to be too hard on and are trampling on the rights of undocumented would-be citizens. That’s not it either?

Simply put, the suit the agents filed against the DHS and the Obama administration is to just maintain their right to uphold the law.

If you recall, last summer, when Obama realized that the “Dream Act” legislation would fail to pass proper legislative muster, he simply did what any right-thinking monarch would do; write an executive order preventing the arrest and deportation of illegals under 30 years of age. It was amnesty by dictatorial Fiat and in practice would extend to all illegals other than violent offenders.

The ICE agents union president, Chris Crane, contends correctly, that the decree prevents agents from fulfilling their sworn oath to uphold the law and defend the United States Constitution; upholding laws such as the one passed in 1996 and signed by our first black president Bill Clinton, making it mandatory that all illegal aliens be deported.

Crane said, “The president’s Directive instructs ICE agents to refrain from placing certain aliens who are unlawfully present in the United States into removal procedures. The Directive further instructs officers to take actions to facilitate the granting of deferred action to aliens who are unlawfully present in the United States. It also directs DHS personnel to grant employment authorization to certain beneficiaries of the Directive.”

Mr. Crane further explains, “The directive commands our agents to violate federal law and our oaths to uphold federal law. We are federal law enforcement officers who are being ordered to break the law. This directive puts ICE agents and officers in a horrible position. This administration has engaged in a sustained, relentless effort to undermine America’s immigration laws.” Chris Crane knows of what he speaks, for he is not only the union president but also a veteran ICE agent. He has been on the front lines.

Former police commander David Scher added, “Sec. of Homeland security Janet Napolitano and her underlings want their agents and officers to just take the word of an illegal alien without verifying his or her statement. It is as ridiculous as releasing a suspected bank robber who states he didn’t commit the robbery without any verification by police officers.”

“The Directive is an extension of the DREAM act, which repeatedly failed to pass through Congress, and aims to grant an amnesty to 1.7 million illegal aliens,” said Chris Kobach, the attorney for the plaintiffs. “It violates federal immigration laws that require certain aliens to be placed in removal proceedings, it violates the Administration Procedure Act, and it encroaches upon the legislative powers of Congress as defined in Article I of the United States Constitution.”

Encroaches? It stomps all over the constitutionally mandated authority of the Congress to pass laws.

“Any threat of harm to our nation’s immigration officers for enforcing the law is a threat against the livelihoods of average American workers,” said Roy Beck of NumbersUSA. “Congress passes laws to determine how many and which citizens of other countries are allowed to enter U.S. job markets to compete with American workers. Fortunately during this long period of high unemployment, Congress has refused to add further competition through amnesties that would give millions of illegal aliens access to the legal U.S. job market. The Napolitano amnesty directive does the opposite. If immigration agents are not allowed to enforce the laws as decided by Congress, the wages and jobs of American workers are at risk.”

In my humble opinion, this is where we on the right get hung up. As with every issue, the left deals and pure emotion and we allow it. We permit the argument to be driven by the left and their emotional response to everything. They set the tone of the discussion and the right falls dutifully on the defensive.

Rather, the right or true constitutional conservatives must reject the premise and merely insist on upholding the guiding principles of this country.

It simply doesn’t matter whether the dictate is considered fair to workers and their jobs. The Constitution is quite clear on who makes the law and who simply signs it. Congress makes the law and the president is duty bound to uphold and forced the law, period. If they don’t like it, they may attempt to amend the Constitution, which is been done many times. This is what should be argued, and only this. Everything else is just window dressing.

After many months there is an update to this story. Recently, federal District Court Judge Reed O’Connor ruled that the 10 agents and officers have standing to challenge Obama’s “Dream” decree in federal court.

There is something seriously wrong when federal agents have to go to court for the right to do their jobs and demand that they not be ordered to violate federal law.

With any luck, and strict constructionist judges, the agents will win the day.

Federal Judge Rules that ICE Agents have Standing in Lawsuit Against Federal Government

Federal District Court Judge Reed O’Conner has ruled that 10 ICE agents and officers have standing to challenge in Federal court the so-called Morton Memo on prosecutorial discretion and the DREAM directive on deferred action. The agents filed their complaint in October, charging that unconstitutional and illegal directives from DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and ICE Director John Morton order the agents to violate federal laws or face adverse employment actions. This is a major first step for the ICE agents in their case against the administration.In his 35-page decision, Judge O’Conner found that the ICE agents and officers have standing, but that the State of Mississippi does not. He has not yet ruled, however, on the agents’ motion for a preliminary injunction to halt implementation of the DHS directives.

The primary impetus for the lawsuit came last June, when Secretary Napolitano issued a memo offering deferred action and employment authorization to illegal aliens under age 31 who meet certain criteria similar to those outlined in the DREAM Act, which has failed to pass Congress on three occasions.

Even before that, though, ICE Director Morton essentially gutted immigration enforcement by issuing a memo on prosecutorial discretion that, in effect, prohibits ICE agents and officers from arresting or removing any but the most violent criminal aliens. Under Morton’s stated policy, most of the 12 million or so illegal aliens that the administration wants to legalize are currently safe from deportation.

This is just one of the reasons that the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council voted unanimously that they have no confidence in Morton’s ability to lead the agency. Aside from ordering ICE agents to not enforce federal immigration laws, Morton has also gutted worksite enforcement and the 287(g) program, which is a cooperative effort between local law enforcement and federal immigration agents.

Deported Criminals Return Illegally at Alarming Rate

There are hundreds of thousands of aliens crossing the US border illegally every year. Less than half of them are ever detained and even fewer of the detainees are ever deported back to their home countries. Working under President Obama’s orders most illegal aliens are rewarded for their actions and released back into our society where they steal jobs, food and medical benefits from US citizens and often ruin neighborhoods and property values.

Supposedly, the government concentrates mostly on illegals who already have a criminal record. (Doesn’t violating our immigration laws automatically classify them as a criminal?) In the fiscal year of 2011, a total of 188,380 illegals with criminal records were deported. However, 86,699 of them had been previously deported at least once. That’s a return rate of 46%, which indicates that we have a complete failure to secure our borders from known criminal elements.

Additionally, there were another 43,307 illegals without criminal records who had been previously deported and again illegally entered the US. Even though it is a crime to cross the US border illegally, none of the 43,307 are considered to have criminal records.

“It cannot be ascertained from the available data how many of the 86,699 previously deported criminals committed new crimes other than their illegal return, but unless they were detained shortly after re-entering the United States, it is likely that they came to the attention of the immigration authorities as a result of new crimes (committed after their illegal re-entry) for which they were convicted or arraigned.”

“The 46 percent may also be understated due to reclassification of criminal deportees. Thus existing data indicate that a minimum of 46 percent of the 2011 criminal deportees were previously deported and returned to the United States.”

“The high percentage of repeat deportees is due in part to the ease of re-entry to the United States for earlier deportees and the knowledge that if apprehended there is only a small chance that they will serve any prison time for illegal re-entry.”

“In nearly all cases the deportee will go undetected unless charged with another crime or if the deportee returns to his old neighborhood and is recognized by local law enforcement officials. Thus the number of deportees who make an illegal re-entry is possibly much higher than indicated.”

“The extent of our revolving door for deported criminal illegal immigrants points to failures in securing our nation’s borders. These failures do not bode well for our future ability to intercept known and unknown terrorists who try to gain access to our country.”

Reports like this clearly indicate that the Department of Homeland Security is doing very little to secure our borders. Their cavalier attitude towards illegal immigration is a disgrace and an affront to most US citizens. If this many illegals are returning and many going completely undetected, then how many terrorists are also crossing into our country illegally?

The US-Mexico border is an open door for anyone, including terrorists, to just walk right in to the country, where they can then carry out the planning and execution of their jihad activities.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Bring our troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan and station them along the US-Mexico borders with orders to detain and shoot if necessary. Military patrols should be stationed in a line of sight with each other across the entire extent of the border. They should also be the ones to man and operate all border crossing stations. This would result in a drastic cut in the amount of illegal aliens and drugs that are currently flowing into the US across the Mexican border. It would also make it harder for terrorists to gain entry in to the country. I believe it’s a win-win answer to illegal immigration, drugs and keeping our military safe at home securing our borders instead of the borders of countries that hate us.